350 Parts Per Million

Yesterday as I listened to public radio, I heard a speech that Bill McKibben gave at Mt. Holyoke College.It seems that Bill McKibben has a new quest.The author of The End of Nature has left the comfort of his Vermont and Adirondack homes and hit the road with a mission to change how we respond to climate change.He is not satisfied with current calls for an 80% reduction of carbon emissions below 2006 levels by 2050 – a target that many have deemed to be aggressive.He wants more.And he wants your help to make it happen.

In 2006 McKibben garnered a lot of attention by getting 1000 people to join him for a walk in Vermont, and elsewhere, to draw attention to climate change.The walk was amped up in the next year through the use of viral internet tools and a bunch of social networking.Events of various kinds were held all over the country, again to draw attention to climate change.Thousands of photos were gathered of people getting together and sharing their concern about the state of the planet.They biked, they walked, they talked, and they let politicians know that they wanted action.All of a sudden, calls for reducing carbon emissions by 80% below 2006 standards by 2050 seemed main stream.Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama included the goal as a part of their climate strategy.Colleges and Universities signed commitments to do that and more.

Then the planet changed faster than McKibben and many scientists had predicted.Around the same time Jim Hansen, the NASA scientist punished by previous administrations for predicting climate change, wrote a peer reviewed paper which predicted that the optimal amount of carbon in the atmosphere was 350 parts per million.We currently have 378 parts per million of carbon in the atmosphere.We are losing the battle against climate change.

In response McKibben and lots of his internet friends have planned another event.This event which is being organized through www.350.org , advocates that we plan an event around the theme of 350 to draw attention to climate change and demand action by our politicians.All politics is local.Maybe getting our legislators to understand that we want to leave our children a better, more livable planet will result in real change.Maybe our children will do better with the planet than we have.At least it is worth a try.